Two main approaches have been used to provide internet access to airplanes. In one approach, an Air to Ground (ATG) system uses terrestrial Ground Base Stations (GBS) using cellular communication techniques to provide internet access to aircraft flying over land. A currently used ATG system operating over the continental United States uses only 3 MHz of spectrum. Although, this system may become commercially viable, the limited spectrum may be inadequate to accommodate increasing demand for internet services such as streaming of internet content to aircraft. In another approach, satellite links provide internet service to aircraft. The satellite based systems have more spectrum available but their cost is excessive.
Because of the excessive cost of using satellite links for aircraft internet communication, it has been preferable to utilize the terrestrial based ATG systems. It would be desirable to increase available spectrum for ATG and provide techniques that would allow such systems to accommodate the increasing demands for aircraft internet service without substantially increasing cost.